In the context of the daily operation of a residential institution, such as a correctional or confinement facility, proper handling of messages and communications between residents and staff, between residents and telecommunications service providers, and between residents and non-residents, has traditionally been accomplished in a variety of time-consuming and inefficient manners.
In one common example, due to constraints that are often placed upon such residents, access to “live” telephone operators is commonly prohibited. Therefore, complaints or questions regarding telecommunications services must be handled using institutional staff to act as an intermediary between the resident and the telecommunications service provider. This imposes a large time burden on institutional staff and accordingly, leads to inefficiency, poor utilization of otherwise specialized personnel, and slow turnaround times for the customer, i.e. the resident. Further, due to the use of an intermediary as the liaison between customer (resident) and vendor (telecommunications service provider), the telecommunications service provider often receives incomplete or inaccurate information describing a condition or problem. This results in a loss of efficiency, slower turnaround times, and the corresponding loss of system availability and potential revenue for the telecommunications service provider as well as for other parties that may share in the telecommunications revenue, as is commonly the case with commissions paid from the telecommunications service provider to the operator of the residential facility.
In another common example, announcements or reminders from staff to residents are commonly distributed as written material delivered by hand, passed verbally, or posted in some public area. These methods of distribution often fail in terms of reliability, lack of timeliness or specificity to a particular resident, lack of documented delivery, or lack of efficient use of institutional staff time & resources. Examples of such announcements or reminders would include, but not be limited to, a reminder to a particular resident of an upcoming appointment, or an announcement to all residents of an upcoming policy change, such as meal times, recreation availability, etc.
Yet another common example of inefficiencies in message handling can be found in the area of formal communications between residents and institutional staff. In the inmate confinement arena, for example, these communications are commonly referred to as “kites” and are used by residents to make various requests, officially lodge complaints, schedule appointments, and various other functions that require some level of documentation. Traditionally, the process has included a resident first making a verbal request to a staff member for a blank copy of a particular type of form corresponding to the type of request the resident wishes to initiate. Next, the institutional staff must retrieve the form from a storage location and deliver it by hand to the resident. The resident must complete the form and submit the completed form to institutional staff, who must then hand-deliver the form to the appropriate department for action. Taking into consideration that this process is used to document a very wide array of requests from residents, it becomes apparent that a significant amount of institutional staff time must be dedicated to the handling of these requests.
Yet another common example of messaging can be found in the communications between non-residents of the institution and institutional staff. These communications are often in the form of information requests by family or friends of the resident. Commonly requested information includes, but is not limited to, such data as projected release dates, upcoming hearings, pending criminal charges, etc. Traditionally, these requests come in the form of telephone calls or personal visits, and are handled by institutional staff, requiring significant amounts of staff time to speak with the inquiring party and to obtain and relay the requested information. Furthermore, the information given to the inquiring party is accurate only at that particular moment in time. Subsequent changes to the data would only be apparent to the inquiring party if they were to make a subsequent inquiry. Given the volatile nature of these types of data, it is quite common for a single party to make multiple inquiries within a short period of time to obtain updates of a resident's status.
Yet another common example of messaging can be found in one-way communications between residents and non-residents of an institution. Traditionally, two-way communications between residents and non-residents must be initiated by the resident, therefore preventing outside parties from calling into the institution. While this restriction does offer the institutional facility a high degree of control over who is talking to whom, it also effectively prevents a number of communications due to both parties not being available at the exact same point in time, as is required in a two-way telephone call. Methods for enabling one-way, or asynchronous, communications between two parties are not commonly employed in the institutional setting.
Still another common example of messaging within a residential institution can be found in communications between two or more institutional staff members, as well as in the documentation, or logging, of a particular event for future reference by a staff member. Examples of these types of messages include, but are not limited to, logging of a properly executed head count, logging of maintenance conditions, as well as communications intended for immediate distribution to one or more additional staff members, such as a call for assistance.